Seven Tin Soldiers
by AllThatGlistens
Summary: An alternate origin for the justice league. Because what story can't be made better with crossdressing? Rated for violence, SMLL, BMWW, HGGL Chapter 2: The Bedfellows Get Stranger
1. Chapter 1

Seven Tin Soldiers

Prologue

She heard the muffled voices. "But," suddenly the words were hard to heard again, "merely a man." That voice in particular chilled her. Ares.

"Perhaps," The possibility of eavesdroppers apparently had never entered Zeus's head. Hestia hadn't missed a word of what he'd said, he didn't speak so much as bellow. There was a pause. "She _is_ lovely."

Hestia was generally content with her station in life, and alone among gods possessed a genuine sweetness with most, but nervousness when it came to her incredibly powerful and willful relatives. She was no fool, but also lacked the calculating and selfish minds of most of the rest of the Greek pantheon. She tended the hearth of Olympus and had not quit her post in millenia. Thus, she had been worshipped and loved by all who had similar duties for thousands of years. None of her family, with few exceptions that thankfully included her mother, had bothered to get to know her well enough to realize that behind this seemingly mindless beloved thing there was a perfectly good, if underused, brain. They considered her dull, mocked her almost as much as poor crippled Hephaestus.

Suddenly Ares was speaking, but softly. She only caught the very last word, "Themiscyra."

Her stomach understood the implications of what she'd just heard shortly before her head did, it began doing strange flips and clenching. She thought about what she knew of both arrogant Zeus and devious Ares, and in mere seconds it all came together. Hestia tensed for a moment…Surely even Ares was not so…wicked? Then she sighed to herself, and began poking at the hot coals in their divine forge. Of course he was. He was family, and she loved him, but he could no more help his nature than the sky could its color. Now that she considered it Zeus had not done anything genuinely moronic in a few centuries, so perhaps he was making up for lost time...

Still.

She had to tell…someone…Had to get word to Hippolyta. Perhaps…something could be done? Maybe this didn't have to happen.

Softly, knowing he would hear, she whispered, "Hermes?"

He appeared in the next moment, looking bored. "Well, if it isn't little Hestia. What can I do for you? Package to be delivered? Need a skilled lyre player to serenade that special someone?"

Carefully, she grabbed a parchment and pen out of thin air--one of the perks of divinity--and scrawled down a message. "I need this to make it to Hippolyta intact."

"Of course," said Hermes lazily, and looked her in the eye, his expression almost a challenge, "For her eyes only, I presume?"

Hestia shrugged, pleased with how little effort it took to keep her face neutral, to conceal the lie with her eyes. "Just women's chatter. Sing it to the skies and trees, if you like."

Hermes bored expression returned. He sighed, and disappeared without another word.

It took Hestia ten minutes to control her shaking.

A/N- Okay, so this is going to be both my first mainly action fic and first extended story. So please leave me some comments and criticism. Really, I'll take anything.


	2. Wrath of the Gods

Chapter 1: Wrath of the Gods

He didn't believe in coincidences anymore. Every single time he'd told himself that, surely, that that man that had been going the same direction as him for miles was just headed home, or that the two crimes presented before him could not possible be connected, Bruce had earned a new scar that swiftly taught him the error of his ways, the many flaws in the entire institution that was trust, and the merits of even _sleeping_ in a wary, defensive stance.

In the past three hours, lightning had struck earth thousands of times. This in itself was nothing short of extraordinary, and had been mentioned on every major news network. Bruce sighed, further investigation didn't clear up the matter, rather muddied it that much farther. There was a massive stack of rolling storm-clouds over Brazil. This accounted for approximately half of the lightning. Northern Europe was having its standard weather for this time of year--dreary. This accounted for fraction more. In incredibly hot Niger, there was quit a bit of heat lightning, but that was exclusively between clouds and never touched the earth. Many other regions of earth were having weather very much short of clear skies, but no lightning.

He rubbed his temples wearily, preparing himself for a _very_ long week, and couldn't help but let out a tiny groan.

"Something the matter, sir?" A cup of chamomile tea and small savory biscuits appeared. Alfred was trying to tell him to sleep, though of course he would deny it vehemently if asked.

"Since approximately seven o'clock this evening, 3,660 bolts of lightning have come down from a clear blue sky." He recited dully.

"You mean yesterday evening, I presume…May I ask what they hit?"

Bruce's defeated slump became that much more pronounced. Without so much as glancing at the computer screen, he continued, "An empty region in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, dozens of olive groves, every major national park and wildlife refuge, particularly those known for their birds of prey and deer, and the headquarters of an animal rights group specializing in hunting dogs."

Alfred paused for a moment, considering. "That does eliminate Mr. Al Ghul, I suppose."

"Most definitely." The words were clipped. He was getting absolutely nowhere and had done as much for the past eight hours.

"How many…" Alfred inhaled deeply, and continued, "are dead?"

"One hundred and fifty people dead and thousand injured both in the initial lightning strikes and the subsequent fires. And it's going to get worse."

Alfred stared down his oldest family. "You would know that…"

A sort of smirk crossed his face. "Never ignore a hunch, Alfred."

"Will you need anything before you go to retire, sir?"

Bruce carefully ignored the assumption that he would, in fact, be sleeping that night. "Yes. Phone Clark Kent, please. Tell him it's urgent."

Alfred would deny the tiny sight of relief until his dying day, but that didn't make its presence any less. "Right away, sir."

When Clark arrived four minutes later, an alarm in a Wayne-tech lab was going off. Simply exchanging a look, the both took off.

* * *

Simon Gellar could not remember a time when he hadn't loved stars, the night, the sky…He'd asked for a telescope for his sixth birthday, and books with luscious photos of nebulae and solar systems for every single one since. He'd taken to physics at fourteen, as ducklings had taken to water. He'd majored in astrophysics at MIT, proving his always-supportive parents correct over the hoards of teachers who were sure that any child that snuck out of the house for a meteor shower of Perseids rather than a kegger could never amount to any good. He had no wife, no child, but despite being more deeply acquainted with vast empty spaces than the average person, he generally avoided the crippling loneliness.

Tonight, though, he tackled one of the many mysteries in the great blackness: dark matter. It composed the vast majority of the universe, yet had never been studied closely. It was everywhere, but no one had even managed to get a handful together. It could be the key to understanding everything, or just a bunch of black stuff that the creator placed there when he ran out of creativity.

He was going to gather a cubic meter of dark matter from the farthest reaches of space, using the machine that he'd spent the better part of a decade building. It had been called "nothing short of miraculous" and "pure brilliance at work" by some of the most respected scientists on the planet as well as "okay, if you're into that" by Bruce Wayne and "worthy of page seven" by a Ms. Lane.

It was night. He had twenty underlings frantically checking all the calibrations for the twentieth times, making sure that they would be getting pure, bone-cracking cold space, not some vital piece of a planet, or chunk of a star that, lacking, would cause a supernova.

Impressive-looking lights every color of the rainbow flickered on the sensors. In the dimly lit room, every person silently put on a thick pair of fluffy ear-muffs--the sound associated with creating a vacuum of that size, that suddenly would be ear-drum shattering if heard naturally. As the observatory and lab were located deep within a wilderness preserve, the hearing of those in the surrounding area were not a concern.

Everyone checked everything, and then checked again. And once last time. No, really, this is the last time. The excitement in the air was a palpable, a real chunk of real dark matter, to observe, to burn, to dissect, to study…They all looked greedily at the tall titanium container in the middle of the room, where all the action would be. Perfectly average earth air for the greatest leap in science this century. It was a good deal.

Simon mouthed "Ready?" And everyone smiled and nodded. His hand, hovered over the switch for the merest of moments, and then began to pull down. Halfway through, a brilliant blue light filled the whole room, everyone's mouths were opened, they were screaming, but he couldn't hear it…Panicked, he slammed the handle the rest of the way down before darting away from the blue light leaping through the room, from metal piece to metal piece.

It hit a shy Asian intern whose name he didn't know, and a moment later her skin was even darker with burns, her eyes open and lolling and she collapsed against the floor. She wasn't moving. The noise they had all expected for the outset of this voyage happened as well, it was still as _loud_ as anything, even with the alarms blaring over it.

The alarms were going off. They really ought to evacuate…He bent over to pick up the intern and as soon as he touched her, felt the hairs on his arms rise. Suddenly it was all painfully obvious: lightning. It had struck here, now, of all times and places.

He headed toward the door and began screaming vague and largely incoherent commands for everyone else to do the same, ripping off earmuffs when they couldn't hear, slapping them when they wouldn't listen.

Simon couldn't help it, he looked back once more at the huge titanium box that had eaten up so much, that should have held the key to his future…

From the inside of it, an ominous thud issued forth. There was a crystalline moment when everyone stared, as one eyes growing wide with a possibility they didn't dare speak, then, they sprinted out the emergency exit, down the sterile hallway, into the smoky night air.

"Someone should call 911..." Offered the oldest there, a man, once they had all caught their breaths.

"No need," said a voice that was terribly familiar. They all looked up to see humanity's own personal real-live guardian angel staring down at them. Clark walked up to Simon, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "What happened?" His voice was seeped with genuine kindness. No one saw what was in the shadows, what offered neither comfort nor questions, who simply waited. Then again, none of these men and women really needed to.

Simon finally managed to speak. "Lightning…It struck the compound, it hit some of us." He offered Clark the unconscious intern. "She needs medical help, she got hit by it."

Clark returned seconds later, and Simon heard the oh-so-familiar sound of sirens as the ambulance fled down the road. "I brought some ambulances with me." Clark explained.

Simon gaped for a full minute before finally comprehending that the man before him meant that sentence in the most literal way possible. "…Right." As briefly as possible, he explained what they had tried to do, and what had happened. Clark exchanged a concerned look with what appeared to be an empty tree when Simon got to part about the ominously occupied titanium box.

"Thank you." He told the young man. "Go home, and get some rest. You've had a bad night. _I'll_" Once again his eyes darted up to the bush, "Go in and investigate. Might be something very dangerous."

Simon nodded, realizing that he was exhausted without warning.

None saw nor looked for the darkness that entered that building directly after the light.

"Still can't take a hint, I see." Clark observed easily as Bruce fell into step with him.

Bruce, patently, failed to react. Their steps echoed eerily through the hallway.

"...Did you hear the thud?" Clark inquired in the manner of one discussing the possibility of sweets after dinner.

"No, but I heard discussion regarding it. Do you..?" Bruce was never one for speaking more than ten words in one go unless the situation and his mood both called for it.

"I don't know precisely...But it has a heartbeat." Clark said. Bruce's blood pressure and heartbeat spiked for a moment, though he neither gasped nor started. They rounded a corner together, neither questioning how the other knew where to go. Bruce's inferior nostrils flared in reaction to the thick acrid smoke that Clark had known about miles ago. Clark cocked his head to the side, listening the the dozens of more human, rapid heartbeats fading. All of the scientists were going to the hospital. All of them were living and would continue to do so.

Clark released a useless breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"They're all fine." Clark said.

Bruce nodded and his muscles grew slightly less tense, but still not relaxed. The fact that this...second alien hadn't harmed anyone yet was no indication it would not do so. Any number of things could set it off...Its own unintelligence, the great shock of its journey, the mere presence of other living things, it was also possible that it had powers beyond even Clark's, that they would be unable to halt a possible rampage.._._Metahumans, Bruce thought wearily. Even the Joker wasn't so unpredictable and troublesome.

"So is Lois." Clark continued, earning a glare from one Dark Knight. "Just trying to make conversation." Clark said, his manner not remotely apologetic.

"Don't."

All of a sudden, a rapid series of metallic clangs echoed from the room they were separated from only by a foot or two. They both froze and listened. Then, with no warning at all, silence.

Clark ran inside, Bruce following as well as he could into the dimly-lit, still-crackling room. The wreckage was complete, that several whole people came out of here was somewhat astonishing. Nothing in the room was unbroken, everything was cracked or shatter, two of the monitors were still burning quietly. The floor was coated with glass, wires, and some small pools of blood. However, the focal point--the titanium box--remained whole. Carefully, Clark squinted and looked within the box. Without his consent, his jaw dropped open.

"It's empty."

With some choice words quite inappropriate for anyone younger than thirteen, the two placed their backs against each other and began to look, hard.

"If it was going for the element of surprise, it would have attacked by now," Bruce sub-vocalized, anyone who wasn't Clark wouldn't have even noticed his throat moving.

Clark listened a lot more carefully. "It's still in here."

Suddenly, as one, both became aware of...something...at the edges of a suddenly shared awareness. For wild moments they saw the room, and then the world, from each other's eyes. Guilt was traded for optimism, exhaustion for strength, twin loves for the people the people that genuinely _mattered_ blurred into one. It was wild, bright, blinding, and above all, disorienting. Neither of them could have said for sure that they were awake, or alive.

Large buildings, green people, unending love.

_Flash:_ Lois, standing in the middle of a busy road screaming at a man who had not given a pedestrian the right of way. Her hair glistened in the sun.

A flicker. Two green children in his arms, they were girls, he would have died for them a million times. Wait. How did Bruce and Clark know any of that?

Black, then not. A twelve-year-old Dick Grayson stood in a dark alleyway, a grin on his face, a would-be rapist at his feet. Pride.

Crackle. Pa and Ma Kent hugged him and told them they loved him, no fear in their eyes. He had just lifted up the tractor with one hand.

Boom, crash. Peace. The unknown presence was confused by the constant thoughts of violence and fear. There was war here?

It sped up. Alfred, putting him back together. Again.

Lois, telling a Kryptonite-wielding super-villain that if he wanted Superman, he was stepping over her dead body.

They realized seconds later that they both had fear and confusion that was not theirs, as one thought, **Get out.**

The spinning halted. They felt their own feelings, once again they were in a dark lab, a green being before them, his thoughts echoing in their minds. _Guilt and a promise to never harm,_ but not put into words.

Clark stumbled forward and offered his hand. Hesitantly, he offered him a hand. "We won't harm you, either, unless you give us a reason."

Bruce didn't stumble, but didn't attempt to walk, either. He just stared. "You won't be able to do that again. Ever."

The alien cocked his head in what may have been amusement. _Awareness. _Something broke through. _J'onn._

They both nodded to him curtly.

Bruce pinched his nose, to ward off a migraine that would come anyway. "Superman?" He called. Rapidly, they began to disassemble the whole room. Within ten minutes they had every major memory component of every computer in a practical black sack, one eye on the wild card always. "I'll try." Bruce said, referring to locating where J'onn may have come from and how to get him back there, not adding that it would be for both of their sakes.

J'onn stayed carefully in one corner of the room, never approaching the crackling monitors.

Clark spoke. "Where can we put him?"

Bruce looked up sharply. "No."

"I didn't even finish aski--"

"No. He's of unknown origin, motivation, and power level. If you think I'm letting him anywhere near--"

"You can hide him, so that no one will find him. Ever. Do I even need to tell you what happens if Luthor or Darseid finds out, imagine Scarecrow with--"

Bruce moved that much closer, and his voice became even more menacing. "Do you seriously think I haven't thought--"

"If he wanted us to be drooling vegetables, he could have done so already. He already swore to never pry again..."

Bruce knew Clark had a point. Naturally, he kept arguing. "So we're accepting unknown metas on their words now? Let's go ask Parasite if he feels he's reformed enough to re-enter--"

"We have to protect him."

"From what?" Bruce muttered, as though they both hadn't seen the way J'onn started every time a live wire sparked.

The words from his mouth were slow and hesitant, sounds applied to objects and ideas, Bruce's and Clark's minds both perfectly effective dictionaries. J'onn's brow furrowed in concentration as he used muscles he'd just made for himself that he'd previously never needed. "He's just...worried...about Tim and...Alfred."

The potent moment that followed seemed to stretch on and on. Clark swore he could _hear_ the rapidly-turning gears in Bruce's head. Unforeseen danger and an unconquerable threat...

"You already know where I live?" It wasn't really a question.

* * *

**One Day Earlier**

She loved her little island terribly. She was known to request a knife and some water, and then to not be seen for days against. She breathed in the scent on the trees, grinning tranquilly as she floated on her back, gazing up at the water was clear enough that she could see straight to the bottom, and always cool enough to be a refreshing drink. Her mother had explained to her many times how fortunate they were that poverty, war, and death dared not tread here, held off by the infinite power of their great gods. How they would be allowed to live this way forever, how Diana, above all, was to be happy always. She had listened to her mother's soft voice speak of ancient heroes among their people so many times the words were there, always, to perhaps be repeated to a child the gods may bless her with someday, or just maybe just Donna whenever she had trouble sleeping.

Without warning, a loud splash echoed through the surrounding forest and Diana was towed to the bottom of this shallow pool, past vivid fish and emerald green weeds...

Using both hands, she issued a series of rapid jabs to the arm around her neck, until it loosened, already a mottled black color. Then Diana grasped the shoulders of her attacker and used the great strength in her torso to flip the assailant of her body and place her own sturdy arm around the slender neck. Having accomplished all of this in less than three seconds, she sprang from the bottom, ignoring the many blows issued against her person until they were both above the water.

"Really, Donna, if you wanted my attention..."

Donna, a smaller and less womanly version of her older sister, laughed hysterically. "The look on your face...Sis, I thought you were supposed to notice opponents _before_ they jumped you."

Diana grinned back. "I thought you were supposed to use the advantage of surprise to _win._"

Donna's smile didn't fade. For a moment she watched her hair billow out behind her in the water. Then her young face grew stony. "Mother wants you. She sounded worried. She said come straight back."

Diana nodded slowly. "Okay." She felt an unfamiliar prickle of worry at the base of her spine, then ignored it. "...A griffin probably got loose..." It was simply a mother's concern, one that was constant throughout her lifetime, no matter that her eldest had been an adult for some time now...

Donna clamored out of the pool the the rocks where two dresses lay warming in the sun. "Probably." She stretched out slowly and started getting dressed. She had just finished when they both froze. Without exchanging so much as a look Donna moved down behind the rock and Diana moved silently toward her. There was a rustling in the forest, something was coming towards them. Something large. Diana's fingers groped blinding around on the rock until they found the hilt of her little knife, which she grasped and brought against her body. Cautiously, two pairs of identical blue eyes peered over the top of the rock and then exhaled twin sighs of relief.

It was just a bull. Granted, they could kill someone who misunderstood how the handle or hurt them, but this was one of many skills everyone on their happy island grew up with. Diana moved towards it muttering soothing nonsense under her breath while Donna trailed behind with a shy smile on her face.

"Hello there..." Murmured Diana, bringing her hand to its forehead and waiting for the chaotic-but-clear animal voice to fill her head. It butted her chest with his nose, and she stroked it for a moment longer. There was no sense of the animal's feelings or thoughts. Diana stiffened and motioned for Donna to step back. This had never happened before, and the silence clearly echoed through her head.

Her eyes told her very clearly that what was before her was a bull. Her instincts screamed otherwise. Its eyes gleamed with intelligence far beyond its species. Her right hand continued stroking the animal and she kept muttering to it. With her left, she made the sign for "flee" around the knife she clasped still.

A moment later, she heard Donna's footsteps retreating into the forest. With no detectable warning, she slammed her tiny blade into this bulging muscle on the animal's neck. It made a slight sound, almost a gasp, that was overshadowed by the protesting metal...She drew her hand back, the knife now bent and twisted. She swore loudly, and then leaped nimbly into the air and vaulted off the animal's back up into a tree, ignoring the roar that made her throat grow tight. She moved from branch to branch as quickly as possible, ignoring the numerous scratches and scrapes appearing on the most tender places of her completely unprotected body. She spared a moment to pray that she'd afforded Donna enough of a head start, then realized that she couldn't hear the sounds of pursuit. She didn't dare pause to look back, that was a mistake she'd made far too many times in the war games all her sisters were so fond of. Diana ran until her legs burned, and then kept running.

* * *

A house tour.

The tally thus far:

Eight different swearwords

Sixteen comments worthy of psychiatric evaluation

A single death threat

Three introductions

The look Bruce was giving him would have reduced Navy Seals to tears. "This is your bed."

"I don't require a bed, but thank you for offering," J'onn countered.

"You can stay in my room..." Tim shyly offered, obviously in awe and delight of a real live alien.

Barbara just laughed.

Bruce, for the umpteenth time that hour, pinched his nose, perhaps hoping to block out the sight of his most dearly-held secrets being dragged out into the presence of this unknown party. The migraine came anyway. "If anyone outside--"

"Excepting those people you have told me are acceptable enters, I am to make myself scarce." J'onn continued, a slight smile--an expression he had just learned--on his face. "I understand...protectiveness."

"Do you understand what happens if..certain secrets come out?" Bruce retorted.

J'onn nodded. "You care far more than they believe."

Barbara saw that particular vein in Bruce's forehead pulsing. "....How about some dinner?" She offered, and hooked her arm through his...tentacle.

* * *

"Mother...I am more than worthy to go into battle with my sisters." She was whining, and she never whined. It did not suit her. Yet, at the moment, vanity was the farthest thing from her mind.

Hippolyta nodded absently while Donna sat in the corner. The sunrise of a new day shone through the large windows. "That's not what's being debated. I'm not losing a child for an Olympian's pride."

Briefly, Diana remembered the unaltered terror on her mother's face when she had arrived at their quarters, naked, bruised and scratched raw and then shook her head until the image went away. Diana had explained as well as she could and Hippolyta's rage subsided. Mostly.

"Mother," she tried again, "Though I will always be yours, I have not been a child for many years."

Hippolyta continued rooting through clothing. There was something alarming about her blank gaze as she regarded those she would die to protect.

Donna was still bleary-eyed and sore from the brutal, unforgiving, and panicked run of last night. She regarded both of them as one would a feud between pigs.

Hippolyta continued to mutter. "They'll be looking for two women, one young, the other full grown. They'll look here first..."

Suddenly, it occurred to Diana that this was about something beyond a mother's blind worry. "Who's looking for us?"

Hippolyta's head shot up. She regarded her first-born through slitted eyes. "The Olympians, of course."

"Why me?"

"Don't be vain," Hippolyta muttered, "They're not looking for _you_, rather for Themiscyran princesses."

"In particular?"

"Whoever finds and acquires either of you controls the entirety of our army. They will threaten rape, torture, death, they will send us small pieces of you...And then what choice would any of us have?"

Diana started and Donna sat up, suddenly clear-eyed. "We can defend ourselves."

She'd never heard her mother laugh quite like that. "Not against this, no. You will leave here. You will take your sister and hide until this is over."

"Why are the Olympians going to war?" Donna inquired shortly.

"It is not for us to understand."

"You're going to accept that? You're going to lay down our lives for something we can't even know about?" Diana shot back.

For a moment the queen rose to her full height and Diana prepared for the blow. Then, without warning, she sagged and looked her age. "Yes."

And that was that.

Donna gritted her teeth. "Whose side are we are?"

"I would prefer neutrality in this foolishness, but I don't believe that will be an option." Something in Diana's gut twinged. That was a lie. Her mother had not lied to her once in the

entirety of her existence, and had chosen today to begin. The gray weight of worry upon her began to edge towards panic. She began sorting through clothing with her mother, to

concentrate on something, anything else.

"You didn't answer the question." Donna continued.

"And I won't."

Diana was stunned to notice the champion's armor among this pile of dingy clothes. Gently, she ran her hands over it. "Mother, we dishonor Athena! What is this doing here?"

"That's yours now. Usually you'd have to earn it, but these are...unforeseen times and we all know you would've gotten it anyway." The sisters exchanged looks similar to men before an erupting volcano and watched unhappily as their iron heritage became increasingly flexible before their eyes.

"Now," continued Hippolyta, as she came across a piece of tightly-woven thin cotton cloth that was about two feet wide and ten long and a pair of clean, worn, khaki men's pants that had obviously washed up on their shores some time ago. She looked at her daughters again. "They will look for a young girl," she looked at Donna and paused, waiting for the idea she could feel coming to be realized.

Her eyes swerved to Diana. "Traveling with a _woman."_

Then her coral lips curved into a smile.


	3. The Bedfellows Get Stranger

Hey. Sorry for the long wait for the update, but I've just gotten all nice and moved in at college (my first year) and so should start doing better. Slightly. As always, reviews keep me going sometimes so I'd love some.

Chapter Two: The Bedfellows Get Stranger

Spoilers for Starcrossed

The first time it hit her, she feel twenty feet, her body stunned into temporarily submission, before she regained control over herself and, steadily, regained height, balance, and direction.

The second time, all she registered was pain, but she was expecting it. She gritted her teeth and shoved into that distant pocket in the dark corner of all our brains until it stopped _screwing with her_. The pain, to its credit, did pass but not nearly as quickly as Shayera would have liked.

She should have learned, considering she was no fool nor had ever suffered them for any less than a rate of a pint of blood per ten minutes. But it wasn't as though she was flying through storm clouds with what, lately, was behaving exclusively as a lightning rod but rather she was flying under clear blue skies that shone deceptively. Sure, the mace weakened it, but it was only magic to a point and pure electricity beyond that.

Shayera was going to have to include this in her report, but she had no idea that she would tell them. Were magic lightning bolts a deal-breaker? Probably. Was that a good thing? She was beginning to wonder.

The third time it whirred and crackled through her and rocketed around inside her until her feathers and hair both stood uncomfortably on end, she swerved into the ocean, which both ate up and shared the current between her and several fish, and somehow increased it. She beat a shark away, the crack of the spiked metal against cartilage bones echoing even through the blub-blub sound of having been under water for several minutes now.

Her wings were soaked now, but the dead shark floated well enough for her to prop up against it and spread them out to dry.

An hour, many waves, a few dolphins and one other shark passed before she flew again.

She flew until she trees that were nearly endless and decided that this would be a good point to continue on.

The fourth time the lightning struck Shayera, her heart, bowing before the great merciless force before it, stopped.

* * *

Wally West was looking for some campers who may or may not have been eaten by a bear. True, one really ought to know whether or not they were relatively whole or in tiny little kibble-sized scraps, but therein lay the problem. It was a group of fifteen women, they had been on a retreat for a support group they had all turned to in their respective darkest hours: survivors of domestic violence. This in and of itself was more than enough to make Wally feel enough pity to look after their well-being, but that was not the end of it. Two of them were pregnant by men they never wanted to look upon, touch, smell, see, taste or hear again. Ever. Some of them continued to sport scars and injuries for the more difficult years of their lives, all of them were broken and only just beginning to heal, the seams of their fractures still evident to the naked eye. They were a pitiful group and no one would want them to come to harm. Or so one would hope.

But apparently someone did. Either that, or none among them knew how to use a compass. They were supposed to meet their bus at an easy-to-find junction that all the trails within the national park eventually led to. They had five satellite phones among them in the case of something...unexpected happening with either of the pregnancies. They should have called if something had gone wrong. One of them should have been able to get word out in the case of just about any garden-variety disaster.

Wally watched the news when he could, but the fact of the matter was that even though he could very nearly occupy two spaces simultaneously that he very seldom had time. However, this morning at a local coffee shop the woman who had, without comment and without charge, given him a coffee with five creams and thirty-seven sugars for years, begged him to find her sister. The woman who had never flinched when scalding coffee spilled down her shirt, or when she was screamed at by an overly-caffeinated customer the fifth time that day had asked him softly and hopefully for this favor with tears in her eyes.

He had agreed in a heartbeat. Promised, if you will.

So here he was. The trees were quickly beginning to look the same to him, the monotonous bright blue sky no help. "I'm not lost," he assured a nearby towering redwood. He just wasn't found, either.

There were no lightning-scarred corpses, no suspicious bloody stains. There was just plain nothing. He'd expended beyond fifteen thousand calories darting between trees and running

up waterfalls and the like. They might as well never been here, never met, never been born. He sighed. He was no detective, if he could just find a body he would be able to put something together...

He promptly stopped wishing for that upon realizing that that would be wishing one of them dead.

Suddenly there was a violent break in the seemingly never-ending olive green colors of the forest. Something artificial and bright. Immediately he backtracked about a mile. A prone female form lay in the upper branches of some trees, unmoving and slumped.

He swore softly, and darted up the tree, running vertically where the branches ran out. He knew better than to try to move someone with an unknown injury without immediate danger present, but there was no heartbeat. He swore. The body's need for oxygen outweighed any possible spinal injury, and CPR was an impossibility with her slumped like that.

Wally attempted to lay her out flat on the ground before he realized what was preventing this: wings. Not allowing his bewilderment to creep up on him, he attempted to yank them off.

They didn't budge, and he got a handful of grey feathers and blood droplets for his trouble.

An angel. It was a strange world they lived in, after all. He decided not to think about this. He did chest compressions anyway, intermittently forcing air into her lungs as well. Five minutes later, her heart followed Wally's illustrious example and took to beating on its own. Two minutes after that, her lungs followed. Moments later she was concious, and slammed the hilt of her mace into his face with a cry that made his palms sweat.

The last thing he heard was the crunch of his own skull cracking.

This was merely further confirmation of many of Wally's preformed theories on women.

* * *

"You don't like me being here." There was no hint of a question mark at the end of that sentence. Slowly, J'onn began chewing on a raspberry dipped in whipped cream. He almost smiled.

"So you really are a mind reader..." Muttered Bruce, knowing J'onn would hear anyway. He stirred a minute quantity of cream into his coffee.

It was just the two of them this morning, college now taking of most of Barbara's time (something Bruce was deeply grateful for) and Tim was always allowed to sleep in until the absolute last possible moment to dress and down breakfast during his car ride to school, excepting the days when his stumbling gait and bruise-like indentations under his eyes were so pathetic that even Bruce was moved to pity and told him to go back to bed. Today, Tim greedily slumbered upstairs, his body eager for every last drop of rest it could garner before, once again, being hauled away from it by the most obnoxious noise known to man: the alarm clock.

"Is it the fact that I am unknown to you or that my abilities far exceed any of yours?" Slowly, J'onn moved onto a strawberry. Today he was a man in his early sixties, with salt-an-pepper hair and an olive complexion, with a priest's collar that struck Bruce as judgemental.

"Why would you need to ask that question?" Bruce offered as an answer, as he began to drink slowly.

"As you threatened not more than twenty-four hours ago, I am no longer able to gain easy access into your mind, though the strain that feat is placing upon you is enormous."

"You could just be telling me that it's working in hopes that I will relax my guard." Bruce shot back, blue eyes, as always, deeply wary.

"And why would I not have simply perused your mind at my leisure when I had the opportunity?"

Bruce shrugged. "You may not have realized the value of the information I have until recently. You may be perusing my mind as we speak, having learned how not to allow your consciousness to leak into mine. You may enjoy deception and challenges."

"Will you be answering the question?"

Bruce shrugged, and for a moment the persona he wore in the day seemed to leak out. "Perhaps," he said, his tone bordering on jovial, "The short answer is 'both' and the combination is deadlier. Now why did you want to know?"

J'onn shrugged and began perusing possible spreads for his toast. "If the former is the issue, then time will cure it and we could perhaps be friends." A glimpse of his devastating loneliness showed in that statement. "If it's the latter, you will most likely hold me in contempt for the rest of our acquaintance."

Bruce never really knew how to handle honesty. "Flawless logic," he said, and bowed his head as though complimenting him on his bet at some horse races.

"You don't trust my kind." A strict observation.

"And people call me the detective."

* * *

It was noon, and Bruce bowed his head in acknowledgement as Clark touched down. "Anything?"

Clark sighed, heavily. "Nothing. I was struck three times." His hair still smoked vaguely in protest.

Bruce cocked his head sideways and nearly smirked. "It still hurt," Clark muttered, in protest. "They come from nowhere. And Lois took my byline..."

For an odd moment, Bruce sighed and his shoulders slumped. "Great. Did you...?"

Clark held up a little black box. "Your computer will tell you the same thing I just did."

Bruce shrugged. "Perhaps."

Even so, they both sat down to watch the recording. Clear blue sky and silence filled the entirety of the huge screen. Then, a crack that made neither of them flinch and brilliant blue light that filled the sky. The perspective shook slightly. Bruce carefully rewinded it, and then watched it again. Then again. Then one more time until....stop! One frame at a time, from the precise time the lightning appeared. Then, frame by frame...

Blue sky, innocent and wide, one would half-expect a kite to appear.

Next frame. A single dot that only Clark could see, still blue, but not. Different. Deadly.

The frame after. The electricity took form now, its jagged edges evident.

Bruce prepared to continue, but Clark muttered quickly, "Stop. Blow up the area immediately surrounding the lightning."

Muttering something unflattering, Bruce obliged until what was a tiny sector of the camera filled the whole enormous scream. Around the fledgling natural disaster, which at this moment was in the shape of a blue disc, there was a tiny amount of peach color, as the skin of the apple to its flesh.

"Atmospheric anomaly?" Bruce muttered, hope's third cousin in his voice.

Clark sighed. "If it was anything....natural, I would have the temperature, or the air pressure change, or heard it. It's not anything..." Again he groped for words with which to discuss the impossible. "Scientific."

Bruce nodded, and attempted to stop the conclusion he could feel coming from reaching his mouth. "A hand?"

Clark's shoulders slumped. "Blow up the image some more...Yeah. I can see the pores."

"But you couldn't hear a heartbeat, or feel a body tempearture, or hear the movement against the air molecules?" Bruce never had bothered keeping accusation out of his tone, and did not choose that night to start.

"No." said Clark. "I couldn't. Which shouldn't be possible..."

Soft groans echoed through the cave. If they'd known that they would utter this mantra many times, then perhaps they would appreciate this time, the first, more.

"I hate magic."

* * *

John Stewart's home was genuinely his castle. At least, in terms of fortification. He had five padlocks on the doors, none of which he ever forgot to bolt carefully upon returning home.

John worked out for hours a day, the mugger or garden-variety thief that tried their luck with _him_ was going to get a whole lot more than his wallet. His windows were bullet-proofed carefully and discreetly. If one attempted to use the air ducts to gain entry, they would regret it. If the unconscious can truly be said to be capable of as much. His walls were reinforced to resist smaller explosives and standard rocket-launchers.

A curious absentee: weapons. No matter how thoroughly a truly fortunate intruder ransacked his apartment, they would find neither gun, nor knife, nor club, not even a pink cane of mace. The security wasn't for John's sake either, he wasn't vain enough to believe that someone would go through all the trouble of mounting a plot against him. If he wasn't in charge of both guarding and guarding with what lived up to the hype of "the most powerful weapon in the universe" he wouldn't have bothered.

Tonight, after a standard set of drills, he collapsed on the couch with a small bowl of rocky road and was planning to indulge in the Turner Classic Movie marathon, when, while flipping through the news he came across something that could, perhaps be called curious. The headline across the top of his television was "Homicidal Angel Seeks Medical Care." This alone may not have interested him, as this was a world they lived in that way quite prone to its oddities, and, whoever she was, she was well within her rights to seek medical care just like every other green man or giant lizard.

The words began to roll of the screen, and were replaced with two others. "For Flash."

A sudden image appeared on the screen, what looked like a warrior angel, a man in red pajamas slumped over her back, screaming very unflattering things about the possible ancestries of those in charge of the police blockade. Then she turned to the reporter who was reading off of a solemn monologue and made an anatomically impossible suggestion.

Hostage situation or major misunderstanding, it didn't matter.

John Stewart's hand found his ring.

* * *

Diana had made her hold hands, for all the good it might do. But they had been told to fly low and only under the cover of night, meaning that the seemingly-endless wine-dark ocean was mere feet below them, instead of miles as both would have greatly preferred. Donna had given her sister A Look when she first reached for her hand, but Diana had returned it tenfold, trying very hard to prevent the particulars of Icarus' story from running through her head over and over again. If Donna had had any thoughts towards falling in the ocean, towards allowing that deep and nearly-endless blackness to fill her lungs and snuff out her life, well, she was going to have to take Diana down with her, for she would die before she let their deeply-intertwined fingers be parted.

Something in her, something that others might call feminine intuition, whispered that it was something other than too many frightening legends too late at night that made her hold her little sister close, that it was something a lot like sense.

Fact: Donna was very nearly as strong and fast as herself, and would be, given time.

Fact: Donna had not been awaiting anxiously Diana's return last night, but had, rather mysteriously, somehow been lagging behind Diana, despite her ample head start and the winding

and time-consuming path Diana had led the bull on. This was...not like her, to be slow when she needed to be fast, to behave unwisely in such unsuitable circumstances.

Fact: Donna had been bruised and sore the morning after their run. Diana had been out of breath and frightened, certainly, but not so pale, not so frighteningly weak, not so shaky.

Something a lot like guilt had wriggled in Diana's stomach for being too busy to notice fighting with her mother to notice these signs before they left, or too demand an answer or...Or what? She had nothing with which to force Donna to tell her what had happened. Donna was weak, afraid, and in pain, Diana knew, but so was she. How could she help? Diana supposed it was easier to focus on what could be wrong with Donna than her prized shining black hair that her mother had rapidly and neatly hacked off with a short sword, than these hideous pants, than the incredible pain from the merciless bindings on her chest.

"What?" Donna muttered, finally breaking the silence that had defined their trip together for the deepest hours of the night. It was the wee hours of the morning now, and both were so far on edge as to be nearly fallen.

"Are you...okay?" Diana winced instantly at the question, at her tone.

Donna chuckled dryly, sounding many times her age for a moment. "You're aware we're currently running for our lives and will be hiding among rapists and cretins in order to keep them?"

"I meant...physically." Diana sighed. When had it become difficult to talk to her best friend in the whole world, the one who knew her better than she knew herself, with whom she shared food, quarters, secrets, and feelings? Whom she would die for without a second thought?

Donna looked at her as though she was something gelatinous that she had stepped in. "I'm fine," she said, flippantly. But, just for a second, her eyes flickered to her left thigh, then returned to defiantly meeting her sister's.

Diana didn't bother thinking about it, but slammed the heel of her hand into Donna's upper leg. Donna, to her credit, did not scream and swear and writhe, but gasped nearly silently. A few scant tears filled her eyes. "What was that for?" Donna had meant her tone to sound annoyed, but the words sounded with an edge of pain. In retribution, she slammed her elbow into Diana's chest, already a cause of no small amount of pain.

All she got in return was a glare.

* * *

John Stewart touched down in the middle of this zoo of a hospital parking lot, allowing the relieved and admiring glances to slide right over him, neither demanding nor taking nothing from his impressive reserves of energy and willpower. He heard the reporter, a minute redhead with freckles and a wide, white smile, gasp with excitement and promptly start announcing that "The Green Lantern had arrived on the scene, and, for those of you who don't know..."

John tried valiantly to rid himself of that twinge of discomfort at the glorified biography of his life that the redhead was spouting as though she had had it memorized for ages now.  
He steadily approached the winged lady, grateful for the fact that the crowd seemed to think that five feet was the minimum distance they should keep from him. He made is to her side within moments, cutting an easy swathe through the crowd.

"Ma'am?" He tried very hard to sound authoritative and sure of himself, but this was more diplomacy than scaring some mugger witless. This was miles outside of his comfort zone.  
He saw that crackling mace move and instantly a green shield went up in front of him without any thought, but she was just adjusting her hold on it.

"If I hand him to you, do you feel like your competent enough to get him into that damn hospital?" Her voice was loud and menacing. "If there's internal bleeding, then these idiots, who really" She gave the reporter a look filled with the most hatred she could muster, "should be used to aliens by now might have killed him."

John just nodded, and a shining green stretcher appeared, levitating about four feet of the ground appeared before him. He gestured, and Shayera lay him there with something that he might have called gentleness had he never spoken to her before. He began to strap Wally in, slowly, in an attempt to prevent any or further spinal injury.

The stretcher began to move towards the hospital smoothly, everyone too busy gaping as Shayera fell into step with John to get further in the way. The cops, apparently having felt that this was a situation better handled by superheroes anyway, obliging faded into the crowd then away altogether.

"What happened?" John mutter, they were both jogging now and Shayera's wings swayed awkwardly as she did so.

For a moment, she looked at her feet. "It was an accident."

"Okay..."

"He just...surprised me."

John chuckled softly.

They passed him off to the first nurse, a forty-something Hispanic woman who didn't faint and looked both of them in the eye and then glanced at Wally, disapproval for their occupation written into every line of her body. Shayera drew very close to the woman, a who was truly lovely with shining black hair dangling down to her waist and murmured, "I find out that anyone took his mask off...." She let the threat hang in the air, and the nurse nodded sagely, half of her mouth curving upwards.

* * *

It was night, and therefore, they were on patrol. Today they had chosen a large park in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Gotham, with more than ample shadows and eerie-looking trees for the opportunistic criminal of any kind. One would have to be a fool, to wander around in that area alone at night, the strip of green and crackling brown a poor defense against a knife or gun, yet a perfect hiding place for such an assailant. But in Gotham, the muggers were every bit as professional as the CEOs and, on average, far more talented in their chosen fields. Perhaps they were hungry, or desperate, and once in a blue moon Bruce could be prevailed upon to pity them, but he would see the fear and the promise of future nightmares on the faces of those they robbed and hurt and realize that he would never, ever, understand.

Tim, despite being something of a prodigy and a very sweet boy who caught more than any of his guardians gave him credit for, tended to buy wholeheartedly into what they were doing. People who got hurt were innocent. Those who did the hurting had to be stopped because they were wicked, but never harmed in turn because they were also misled and weary, and the good guys didn't hurt someone they didn't need to.

Tonight's victim was a college-age girl, quite drunk, sobbing, and clad in a wildly-dishevelled outfit that had probably looked very put-together and flattering not three hours earlier. Her appearance, which upon closer inspection revealed angry plum-colored bruises forming on her wrists, collarbones and face made her reasons for walking home alone at such an hour quite apparent. The last thing she needed that night was to be harmed or intimidated by another man.

Bruce and Tim were perched in a tree. When the two men, both in their young twenties, both walking with a swagger, whom they had been waiting for for hours now finally acting he would swoop down from the tree, and slink towards them slowly, looking for all the world like a demon fresh from hell. They would try to run, or fight, but it wouldn't work. They would reach for the girl as a hostage, but she would have already been spirited away to safety by Tim. They would never, ever, again try to hurt someone weaker than them once they got out of the hospital.

"Stop!" One of them called out. "Stop right now!"

The girl had lived in Gotham her whole life and sprinted, making it all of five steps before tripping over her high heels. Bruce allowed then to get within ten feet of her and then, with a barely-detectable nod at Tim, moved down silently onto the grass.

He never aimed for the head first, instead breaking a collarbone with a swift roundhouse which caused the tip of his boot to connect with a loud, sickening crunch and several ribs on the

other with a well-placed elbow. The former fell to his knees, gasping with the pain and groping at what was once whole with something that seemed like shock. The latter went for Bruce with a sloppy and slow right hook. Bruce didn't even bother with a formal block, but caught the delicate part of the man's wrist in his iron grip and, lightly, squeezed. The man, who was looking much more like a boy now, howled.

He was shoved into the boy already on the concrete. "If I ever meet either of you again..." His voice was a hiss straight from nightmares.

Both pale, sweating, and shaking nodded and limped away as fast as they could. Tomorrow they would make up a story about an enormously unfair fight with ten huge armed men. Tonight they would go to a hospital and perhaps look through the Help Wanted section of the classifieds while waiting for medical care.

Bruce, by now, knew better than to get near the girl, who was sobbing that much harder and whose mascara was now running in earnest. Tim approached and patter her shoulder. "Do you want me to walk you to the hospital?"

Leaky brown eyes were fixed on him. "He can come too," Tim added lightly, "And then anyone that even _looks_ at you funny," he mimed a punch and a growl.

The girl offered a watery chuckle and spoke. "I just want to go home."

"Okay. Do you live near here?" She nodded and they all set off, Bruce keeping at least forty feet behind, always, watching, listening, and even smelling for signs of trouble.

The girl was seen through her front door without incident, and the moment Bruce had joined Tim some ancient instinct prompted him to look upward. An unidentifiable outline moved with grace and speed that he might have thought it was Clark, except Clark never moved so...regally. Within moments his instantaneously-formed theory that this was a new player was confirmed as the second dishevelled creature of his night appeared before him. He was cut, and sweat, and had storm-colored spots beneath his eyes, which were blazing. But for the merest fraction of a second all either him or Tim could do was stare. With his already-infamous willpower, he shook himself out of it and assumed a subtle defensive stance and waited patiently for his next move, already certain that there was a certain wrongness about him that had nothing to do with abilities beyond that of humans.

The bundle in his arms moved vaguely. He shouted something at Bruce. It sounded like poetry. Tim moved forward slowly to more closely inspect what he clutched to his chest so tightly, but Bruce held his arm out just as this raven-haired man lashed out a leg that would have landed Tim on the ground and at least slightly broken.

He spoke to him again, more slowly. Bruce caught three words: "injury", "sister", and "urgent" and decided that the rest were relatively superfluous. Years ago, back when Bruce didn't know absolutely everything, he had read the Iliad in its original tongue. It remained one of his favorite stories.

He thought briefly about a possible equivalent for "doctor" and settled for "healer in white" and the man, with what he recognized as deep distrust, nodded but still gestured for him to go first, to lead the way.

Finally, after they had passed under several streetlights allowing him to be inspected more closely by Tim, whose movements he didn't want with _quite_ such disdain, he drew closer to Bruce and whispered, not knowing that he may as well have shouted. "Who is he?" And, when Bruce shrugged almost imperceptibly, "And why is he wearing a pair of your pants?"


End file.
